Masque of the Forever Lost
by PFCDontKnow
Summary: "My master's motives are beyond mortal comprehension, Human. Even mine. Whatever they are, though, I am certain that he finds this all very hilarious. I and mine have simply learned to laugh along with him, or lose what little sanity we have left trying to understand."
1. Chapter 1

_"–Platoon-size element advancing northeast of our position–"_

_"–One-five, say again, one-five Senth-Besh-Dorns seventy meters out–"_

_"–his is Squad Seventeen, requesting air support at grid coordinates–"_

_"–Tanks! They got fracking tanks!"_

_"–moving to cover. Squad Fourteen reporting three casualties, two moderate, one–"_

_"–uad Seven, this is COC, do you copy? Squad Seven, res–"_

_"–derstood, Squad Fifteen. Esk-four-one-nine initiating bom–"_

"Commander!" Padawan Jan Sharic's head snapped up in surprise from her position crouched behind cover listening to the battle-wide comms as the rough, gloved hand of a clone trooper grabbed her arm "We're moving!"

The brown-haired Human nodded in response as she scrambled to keep up with the tank-born soldier, drawing her green-bladed lightsaber and trying to let her ragged breathing drown out the constant status updates and calls for support.

Years of practice detach her muscles from her conscious control as red particle-beam bolts are deflected by the green shaft of superheated plasma in her hands, and she is running, running, running, the sounds of discharging rifles around her and behind her and in front of her.

The rocky ground beneath her feet and her heart pounding in her ears and her lightsaber's monotonous _hummm_ are her only constants as she swings the blade into the droid before her, the metal warping and melting and cracking along fault lines to shatter into hundreds of pieces that fall to the ground unnoticed. The Jedi apprentice has already moved on, her body traceable by the whirl of green light as blaster fire is batted away and droids are ripped apart.

A second _hummm_ soon joins the first, and a blue blade whirls into existence next to green, its wielder moving with the fluidity and grace only a Master of the order could bring to bear. Master and Padawan together tear through ranks of unfeeling metal like a scythe through wheat, leveling dozens of droids in seconds. The rising and falling whine of the sabers, the shrieks of tortured metal, the rapid beating of blood through her veins, and the staccato cracking of the rifles form a cacophonous symphony that worms its way into the hearts of all, summoning fear and courage in equal measure.

Even at the end, several moments pass before the lingering notes of the battle-song fade from the human woman as she stood there. And with the ending of the song, fatigue washed over her like a tidal wave, nearly pitching her to her knees.

"They're falling back," Master Ivust Zeqquri stated calmly, breathing heavily, but otherwise showing no signs of having been fighting for his life, "Commander Talon, I want a casualty report as soon as possible."

"Yes, sir!"

Sharic stared emptily at her Master, unflappable and steady and _certain_ as always. She envied him, sometimes. The two Jedi watched the post-firefight movements of the clone troopers for several silent moments before the Mirialan Jedi Master turned to speak to his apprentice.

"Padawan, are–"

His question was interrupted by a red beam that lanced out at his face and threw him to the ground, deflected mere millimeters from his face by a last-second Force Barrier.

Everything happened at once. Multiple similar lances raced out, many slicing through helmets as if they simply didn't exist, the piercing scream of falling artillery joined itself to the screams of the wounded, and the world exploded in noise and light and chaos.

_"–quad Fifteen, we've got five casualties, need medevac now!"_

_"Squad Nine taking heavy fire! Hard contact, say ag–"_

_"Where the hell did they come from?!"_

_"–hit! I'm hit! Esk-four-one-four eje–"_

_"–eing overrun! Senth-Besh-Dorns overrunning Squa–"_

_"–in command?! I can't reach the General!"_

_"–meone get the General! They're ever–"_

"Commander!" Rough hands grab her shoulders, shake her. "Commander! What are your orders?! Sep forces are everywhere!"

She can't concentrate. Her Master is lying at her feet with half his face blistered and red and weeping and everything around her is dissolving and she can't concentrate and the Commander is shouting in her face but she can't hear him and the earth is exploding around her and she doesn't want anyone else to die and so she reaches out desperately to the Force and beyond…

…and touches upon an ocean of power that's beyond anything she's ever felt before, vast and beautiful in its expanse, ever-changing and magnificent, colorful and cacophonous beyond description, ripples echoing from somewhere far away…

…she takes hold of this power, channels it through her desire to _save_ and _protect_ and _not die_, and it pours through her like a flood…

…and she remakes reality.

* * *

**And so the stage is set, and now our play begins...**


	2. Chapter 2

Colorless visions and meaningless sounds resounded around her as she struggled to recall where she was. Padawan Sharic struggled to remember why the green-skinned man holding her face in his hands as he spoke soundlessly to her seemed important for several moments before _everything_ came back to her in one sudden _wave_, and she hurried to turn away before she emptied her stomach all over her Master's robes.

She ended up being sick all over Commander Talon's yellow-trimmed armor, instead.

"...Sorry," she croaked, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth. The clone just chuckled.

"It's all right, ma'am," he said with a grin, "Needed cleaning, anyways."

With a gentle hand on her shoulder, Master Zeqquri redirected his apprentice's attention back. "Jan? How are you feeling?"

She wasn't sure how to answer that. She cast her eyes around the rocky field, surrounded by the detritus of war, and took a deep breath. "It's...it's so quiet," she finally decided, "Everything's so...dull."

"What do you mean?"

"Everything just feels...less..." Unable to articulate what she was feeling, she gestured vaguely in front of her face. "Just...less."

Ivust frowned at the commander who shrugged, mouthing "head injury?" behind his Padawan's back questioningly.

"We'll have one of the medics look at you back at headquarters," the Mirialan told his student as he helped her to her feet, "You need to rest."

"Yes, Master." She bit her lip, the familiar sign that she had questions. "What...what happened?"

"You don't remember?"

She looked down at her feet as they made their way towards the nearby gunship, Commander Talon keeping one hand on her arm to steady her. "I...I remember seeing you get shot...and then there was an explosion...and I didn't want anyone else to die..." She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "It all kind of goes black after that..."

"Whatever you did, ma'am," Talon spoke up, "It worked real well. Just take a look at the General's face."

Zeqquri couldn't help running a finger down the side of his face where the sniper round had almost got him. Whatever she'd done, yes, it had worked very well. But it had not felt like any use of the Force he knew. And that bothered him.

"Meditate on it after the medics clear you," he told her gently, "Perhaps that will help you recall what happened."

The Human girl looked like she wanted to keep questioning them, but merely nodded. "Yes, Master."

As the gunship lifted off to return to the Republic headquarters, Jedi Master Zeqquri watched Commander Talon as the nonchalant look on his face slid off, replaced with a look of ashen fatigue.

"Make _sure_ everyone knows she's not to be told about the...resurrections," he ordered.

"Trust me, sir." Talon's voice was tight, a confused broil of emotions buried beneath his words, "We don't want to talk about them, either."

* * *

A med-droid had run a quick scan over her head and cleared her of any head trauma, and so after a absolutely glorious shower, and wearing a clean set of robes without burn holes in them, she sat cross-legged on her rack, trying to concentrate on the feel of the Force around her.

She could feel the thread of lives around her, the way the clones were at the same time all like one mind, and yet uniquely diverse, the way the minds of the few non-clone officers were like disorganized streams compared to the regimented thoughts of their subordinates. She had turned inward, reflecting on her own thoughts, when she felt a _presence_, more powerful than anything she'd felt before, suddenly appeared behind her. She leapt to her feet to see...

Colors without names or description slammed against her eyes, sounds beyond understanding and sensations beyond comprehension flowed over her, she was lost in a sea of extrasensory overload. So overwhelmed as she was, she barely noticed the gentle nudges of the _B__eing_ as it directed her towards what felt to her as a breath of air after being submerged underwater.

The _tide_ of emotion and sensation abated, leaving her shaking from the overexposure. The only response she could summon was, "What..."

_Amusement_ seemed to fill the space around her, emanating from the _P__resence_ that defied description even as she tried to understand it.

It felt like the low chuckle of one privy to an inside joke, the giggle of a child, the mad shriek of the deranged, the howling of one amused beyond belief, the satisfied cackle of a prankster, the indecent sniggering of adolescents, all at once and utterly beyond comprehension. When she finally caught sight of it, words failed her completely. Everywhere she looked, it changed, never the same twice, a riot of colors and shapes that made her want to laugh and crow and dance with mirth.

She got the impression that the _Presence_ was mockingly reprimanding her, almost like it was waggling a finger at her saying, "Naughty, naughty, little girl. That could've ended badly."

"But I didn't do anything..."

Chuckling knowingness, like an adult reassuring a child, "Oh, how little you know..." changed into

Smug gratification. "But _I_ got here first! And won't They be just upset to have missed this chance."

"What do you mean?"

Cackling excitement. "Oh, but that would spoil the surprise! No, no, little one, you just sit tight."

"For _what_?"

Teasing giggles. She could almost see the hands rapidly clapping in ecstasy. "Oh, you'll know. Now, I believe it's time for you to-"

_WAKE UP._

There was no mistaking the direct speech of the _Being_ for what it was, and it sent her over the edge, giggling and laughing and chuckling and crowing and...

It persisted even after her eyes opened to reveal the off-white ceiling of the pre-fab barracks room she shared with her Master, trailing off and leaving her lying on her rack out of breath and with tears of mirth rolling down the sides of her face.

"Was it a good dream, then?" The voice snapped her upright to reveal the Mirialan seated at the room's desk, watching her. She snickered.

"Master?" For some reason, his question filled her with a sense of amused superiority.

"You were laughing in your sleep, Padawan. Good dream?" The question sent her back, and Ivust just smiled in confusion as his Padawan nearly fell off her rack as she collapsed into a second, louder fit of laughter. It would appear their talk would have to wait for whatever bout of madness she was experiencing passed.

* * *

**Maker damn it, I keep finding shit wrong with the chapter. Sorry if I keep spamming your inbox...**


	3. Chapter 3

**Wow, my muse must really like you guys. Three chapters in as-many days? To quote a certain Scottish Dwarf (like that identifies anything): "This is a thing unheard of!"**

* * *

The will of gods is not something so easily determined under the best circumstances, much less when your god is for all intents and purposes _identified_ by his skill with chicanery and the endless amusement it brings him.

And yet, he was one touched by the Laughing God, privy to insights and secrets no other child of Isha even dreamed of knowing. Surely this comprehension granted to him provided some small advantage in determining the whims of the Great Fool?

The thought made him laugh.

Who was he to think he could comprehend the will of a god? Especially one that enjoyed misdirection and pranks? No, he did not concern himself with "why", only "what" or "how".

Some beings would mistake such callings as their god's "will", the humans featuring most prominently in his mind, with their worship of their corpse-lord. Do not commanders of armies direct their troops with simple orders to defend or move or assault? Do such orders encompass the true will of the commander?

If, then, the will of a mortal can be obscured by the direction he gives to his underlings, how much more obscure is the will of a god rendered, when even simple direction of when and where must be subjected to interpretation?

Forever flitting through the halls of the Labyrinthine Dimension left him with much time to reflect on thoughts like this and many others, when he was not engaged in the Dance Without End alongside the ever-more-extravagant Masques, those lesser, more numerous servants of his master.

And so when he spied a branch of the Webway he did not know, he stopped. The knowledge of the Webway given to him and his was second only to that of the Great Harlequin Himself, and he _knew_, beyond a shadow of a doubt, there was no path there. Though, the more he looked at it, the more he could see why it had been passed over before. It was a miniscule entrance, small enough that even the smallest of his race would be hard-pressed to pass through. And there was a powerful psychic veil over it, such that even the most observant of the Asur would find their eyes sliding over it with out realization of what they were seeing.

Which is why he was surprised to see it. By all rights, even his attention should have slid away, not registering its presence. In fact, he was all but certain that this had been the case many times before. Often did he travel this piece of the Labyrinth-In-Between, and never yet had he met a soul along its traverse. Crouching, he picked up the object that was surely responsible for this newest revelation.

An _agaith_ of immeasurable quality, the likes of which he'd only ever seen on the faces of the _A__thair_, the Troupe Masters, and yet different. Where most false-faces of the _Athair_ were grotesque things, mocking the sinister, ugly face of war, this one was carved with a terrible beauty, accentuating the horrific allure of violence. As he turned it over, his questions only grew. There was no indication it had ever been worn, no rune depicting the Masque to which it belonged - though what Masque it would belong to he knew not, no one else traveled this way, absolutely nothing to identify an owner. And yet, it was without a doubt the wargear of a Harlequin.

_Who, then, is this for? It was obviously not created without purpose._ Some itch within his being drew his gaze upward, into the newly-revealed branch of the Webway. Something silver glimmered within its expanse, and without hesitation, he pulled himself through the opening, the _agaith_ hanging from his belt. He inhaled sharply as the object came into view.

A _geirgilath_ lay before him, newly-wrought and untouched. The flip-belt was a masterpiece of Eldar craftsmanship, but even this one was different from others he had seen. Where normally, the flowing runes of their Lexicon were lovingly carved into the metal, strange runes, blocked in nature, and yet utterly unlike even the _mon-keigh_ letters, were etched, spelling out words he could not understand. He picked it up, the belt as light as all others of its kind, and turned to resume his travels, only to stop short.

He could not find the entrance that led back to the rest of the Webway. Whatever machinations that had let him observe it to enter had been undone, leaving his eyes to slide from wall to wall without comprehending. A silent curse echoed in his head, and he was left with no other choice than to follow where this strange path lead. Fortunate he was, that the hall was not a cramped as the entrance, else he would have gotten stuck at one point, he was sure.

To his surprise, he came across a lone Harlequin wandering the path ahead of him, their head tilted back in obvious wonder, even invisible as it was under the mask. He did not recognize the coloring on their holo-suit as belonging to a Masque he knew of, and waited for the Harlequin to notice him first. When he finally did, he jumped with excitement and clapped his hands.

"Ah! Good! I thought I felt another presence!" the Player cackled with glee.

He felt an eyebrow rise beneath his horned mask. "You aren't afraid to invite damnation by speaking to me?"

"Who else am I supposed to talk to?" The Player gestured to their empty surroundings. "The walls?"

He had to chuckle at that. Not many would dare speak to one such as he. Fewer still would be so bold as to talk back. The flip-belt in his hands brought a question to the forefront of his mind. "These would not happen to be yours, by any chance?"

The Player looked at the _agaith _and _geirgilath_ curiously before tilting his head. "Why do you ask? Do they look to be made for me?"

He looked down at the items again. "Perhaps not," he admitted. The Player was male, and the belt and mask seemed to be designed for a female.

"Then it might be best you seek out who they are meant for, my Solitary friend."

He looked up at the Harlequin's quip and laughter to see naught but empty space before him. All around him, and there was no indication any other being had shared space with him, save for a rapidly departing presence and fading laughter.

With new purpose, and a beatific smile upon his face, he strode down the shimmering corridor before him, ready for whatever the universe might throw at him. Or so he thought.

* * *

**Dun dun DUNNN!**

**[Cue maniacal laughter]**


End file.
